Q&A With: Camryn Garrett — The Magic Word

Feb 21

Feb 21 Q&A With: Camryn Garrett

Bookseller Bex sat down with author Camryn Garrett to discuss Friday, I’m in Love. Bex and Cam talk about recent adventures in screenwriting, literary bad girls and the joys of coming out.

Bex

I'm so excited to have with us today Cameron Garrett, my dear pal and coworker, author extraordinaire, shelf talker queen, filmmaker, award winner. We love her. You love her. Cam, hello. Welcome.

Camryn

Hi. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Bex

My first question is an easy one: what are you reading right now?

Camryn

I’m reading Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer. It’s a nonfiction book about Truman Capote and the woman in his life. It’s what the next Ryan Murphy Feud show is going to be about.

Bex

Capote was gay, right?

Camryn

He was gay. He was famously gay and famously a Brooklyn Heights resident, I believe. And famously messy.

Bex

Famously messy. That's a lot of fun. Have you read any of his actual work?

Camryn

I read In Cold Blood.

Bex

Oh, how was that?

Camryn

I read it in high school. And, I mean, it was... It's fine. I'm more interested in him as a figure. I've read some of his magazine pieces and… I just think he's really interesting as a figure.

Bex

That's fair. I read a lot of Carson McCullers in high school and college and they were very good friends but also maybe he was kind of mean to her?

Camryn

I think he was kind of mean to all of his female friends, hence the Feud FX TV show that's gonna be coming out.

Bex

I read your most recent book, Friday I'm in Love, very recently. Loved it, adored it. It filled a queer hole in my heart. We've talked about this ourselves and how we are both huge fans of The Cure and obviously the title is a reference to Friday I'm in Love. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to get the permission for that and talking to and emailing Robert Smith?

Camryn

So I didn't email with Robert Smith, I think the contracts people at Random House did.

I was a little stressed out. I didn't realize that normal boilerplate contract language is that if an author has lyrics or something like that the author is responsible for getting permission. I didn't know how to reach out to The Cure but my editor thankfully was like, “we will take care of this.” And it was great! They got back to us and they said, “sure, like, go off.” They didn't actually say “go off.”

Bex

I wish they said go off.

Camryn

They were like, “sure, as long as you keep the lyrics in English, even if it's translated.” And I was like, “I will absolutely do that.” I'm really excited by the fact that they know I exist! They probably promptly forgot, but they know. It was also really exciting for me and for my mother who loves The Cure, too.

Bex

Did they want to know what the book was about?

Camryn

I think the book was pitched to them. I love the idea of them just being told what this book is about. Just like this amazing YA book about a Black lesbian in high school. And them saying, “slay, that sounds great. Go ahead.”

Bex

Great!

That leads directly into the next question, which is, especially for Friday I'm in Love, music is clearly such an important part of this work. There are playlists involved. I loved looking at the playlists. I loved seeing what Mahalia’s friends commented on the playlist. It's also famously one of the gayest things: to make someone a playlist. Now we do it with streaming, but before you had to physically make a mixtape or burn a CD.

Because music is such an important part of your work, do you listen to music while you write? Is it a part of your practice? How is it involved in your practice?

Camryn

I think it's really helpful with brainstorming and figuring out characters. When I still lived at home with my family I used to be able to write with the TV on because I would be writing in the living room. Now I can't really focus with outside noise, especially if I'm editing. I can't have music playing because I get distracted. But when I'm brainstorming or if I'm doing these big developmental edits where my editor's like, “I don't know who this is” or “I want to know more about this character”, music's really helpful.

In the beginning, the main character, Mahalia, makes these playlists for her crush. And in the beginning, they didn't change that much. They were all a very similar music style. By that I mean it was older-new-wave-rock-Black-dad music and my editor was like, “shouldn't this change the more she gets to know her crush?” And I was like, “oh that's so true”. I was thinking “what would Siobhan, her crush, be into?” It's a lot of lesbian indie music. St. Vincent, etc. If I wrote it now, she would listen to a lot of Boygenius and MUNA and stuff.

I went to an event and they asked me what playlist she would listen to and what music she would love. I was saying Boygenius and everyone was like, “who's Boygenius?”

Bex

What?

Camryn

It was mostly older people.

Bex

Oh, okay. Forgiven.

Camryn

There were a few young people but it was mostly older people so I was trying to explain that Boygenius is a supergroup.

But yeah, I think Boygenius is very Siobhan. I think music's really helpful when coming up with a character tone or vibe.

Bex

I had a mentor once tell me that I should make playlists for all my characters and I started to but then it just became picking albums. With one of them I was like, “oh, this person just listens to Joni Mitchell’s Blue.”

Camryn

Yeah, I think it's hard. I also think teaching writing or going to a writing program is hard because we all sort of have our own process. And so your teacher might be like, “you need to do this thing” and if that thing doesn't help you you’re left wondering why it’s not working. Sometimes it just doesn't help.

Bex

Friend of the store, Molly McGee, an author and also a writing instructor says “don't listen to your instructors.”

Camryn

I think it's nice to think of everything. I'm also telling myself this because I graduated from film school and I'm trying to apply the same thing. But I think it's really helpful to take what works for you and then dump the rest and try to still be confident in yourself as a creator.

Bex

Yeah, a friend of mine says that writing feedback, or artistic feedback in general, is like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Some of it's going to stick and a lot of it's going to fall off because none of us are spaghetti makers.

Camryn

It's so interesting because I'm working on a feature and I love it and I keep sending it to people for notes but I keep being like, “oh I'm not using the majority of these notes.” It's so weird for me because I've had the same editor for the past five years so I'm very used to someone completely understanding what I want. I can finish a first draft and be like, “this is not where I want it to be, please get me there.” So it's so weird to be writing something else and being like, “oh this is pretty close to where I want it”.I know what I want and I don't wanna revamp it. Does that make sense?

Bex

It makes complete sense. I think about this a lot, especially when I receive feedback from people I trust but I don't necessarily agree with. For a while I would get feedback from people I really trusted and I would think “something is wrong. They must be right. I must be wrong about this,” but not always.

Camryn

This is literally the breakdown I was having the past month! I wrote this screenplay sort of in a frenzy and I love it so much. It's the first screenplay I've written that I loved so much. I'm so used to doing extensive edits. And again, I think writing a screenplay and writing a book are very different. But I kept getting these notes. My friend was like, “oh, I think there's a lot more room for conflict. I think this voice is very young.” And I trust her very much, but I'm like, “no.” And I was so confused because I was like, “wait, I trust her and why am I not taking these notes?” I was anxious. I was like,“what's gonna happen if I don't take these notes?” And it was like “wait… nothing.”

Bex

Nothing! Nothing's gonna happen. You are the only person who can write what you're gonna write.

Camryn

Yeah. And then a friend read it and she was really helpful. She went through and was like, “here's a way you can add more conflict but I'm not gonna tell you to rearrange everything or to add scenes” which I think is really helpful.

Bex

Yeah, when you can find the reader who actually looks at your work based on how you are writing it versus how they would write it.

Camryn

Exactly.

Bex

I had someone tell me once that a set of characters basically needed a trauma bond and I was like, “I'm not trying to trauma bond these people.” The characters I was writing were once a couple and I think them breaking up is sad because breakups are sad. Then I realized what the actual note was that we never had seen them happy. We were never rooting for them. And I was like, “oh, that's something I can work with.” I just needed a moment where we got to root for them so that we're sad when they do break up.

Camryn

I think that's why having multiple readers can be helpful, right? Because my friend was saying there's more room for conflict. And I'm thinking that I really like the structure of it. I don't want to change it that much. And then I have another reader saying, specifically going through the script, “here is where this scene can have more conflict”. This person who read this doesn't work in film or in writing or anything and it was really really helpful to have her read it. We like the same things and we talk about art a lot so I know she had a similar sensibility and knew what I wanted.

It was kind of funny because I said, “I don't want them to have more conflict because it’s a rom com, is that bad?” Because, you know, stories are about conflict. And she was like, “if they had more conflict, I wouldn't want them to be together. I'd be like, this is not a good couple.” Which is a really interesting thing I didn't think about.

Bex

Stories are urged on by conflict but the conflict doesn't have to be with each other. It’s such a very Western version of storytelling: conflict. Ocean Vuong has said so much about this especially in regards to On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous about how this is not a necessarily a conflict driven book because this is not being told from the canon of Western mythology and Western storytelling.

Camryn

I think sometimes it doesn't work for me. I took several screenwriting classes in school and we were taught the plot structure, the three-act structure, the plot map, and I still use it, but I am also watching all of this foreign cinema and seeing how differently the stories move and then seeing how people still really enjoy these films.

There are a lot of French films, there are a lot of Korean films where I'm like, “oh, nothing's happening for a long time.” Especially French movies. And sometimes I really like it and sometimes I don't, but I love sort of borrowing from that.

Even in books. Emergency Contact, Mary H .K. Choi: I loved it and so did our coworker. It's a romance book, really. It's a YA romance but I remember reading an interview with her where she was like, “I wanted to write a book where, low key, nothing happens.” I love that. Of course sometimes it doesn't work for me. Sometimes I'm like, “ugh nothing happened in this.” But sometimes it really does work. I like to play around with that.

Bex

Yeah, I feel like that's kind of a big movement right now, even in contemporary adult fiction. The idea of The Plotless Book. I think one of the things I've been having recently with The Plotless Book is that they are really becoming attached to these unhinged white female protagonists. Sometimes I need a break.

The other day I was like, “you know what? I actually did need a plot. I did need something to move towards.” That's not always the case and it's not always true that the plot is clearly just the unhinged white female protagonist. That is just a really big trend right now. It's that and Greek retellings.

Camryn

Oh god, yeah. I see this in film, too, where I saw a movie at New Fest that I won't name. I was so frustrated to the point where my friend was sitting next to me and was like, “it's not that bad. Chill out.” But I see this sort of like across both books and film where it's A White Woman Behaving Badly. It's frustrating for me because, first of all, you don't usually connect to these characters, and you don't need to, but I feel like if there's no plot then I need to work even more. A lot of times they're rich and mean. It's kind of annoying to me.

In this movie we watched, this white girl kept fucking up and she was hurting people, right? She's hurting her Black girlfriend, she's hurting her Black girlfriend's new girlfriend. She's hurting her family, she's hurting her old friends. It's hard for me to empathize with a white woman who just keeps hurting people and doesn't seem to care.

I feel like that's a lot of contemporary fiction right now, a lot of literary fiction. One exception I think is the Marlowe Granados’ Happy Hour because they're mean brown women just like, “we want to party.” They keep partying and running around the city. It stressed me out, but I was like, “go off, you know?”

I don't care about plot that much, but it's comforting to me. I like the mix of having plot while also having character moments.

Bex

On the Happy Hour note, Marlowe Granados, I remember reading that book and thinking “okay this is kind of in a similar realm to like Sally Rooney and Sheila Heti about these women who are kind of doing nothing” but there's so much more nuance to it.

Camryn

I feel like it's because (and maybe this will bother people) I think for white women it's sort of a chance to reclaim their narrative from white men, but for the rest of us it's us reclaiming our narrative from white people in general.

For a lot of white women it's very important to them that they are women, but for other people of color, whiteness is very similar in terms of their treatment of us and their privileges. I bring that up because we have always seen these narratives about white people, even if they didn't treat white women correctly. So it doesn't feel as exciting. Whereas if we're talking about Happy Hour, I don't think I've ever seen characters like that before. That's really exciting even when the characters are stressing me out.

Bex

It's a stressful book!

Let’s talk about the narrative of your beautiful book and protagonist instead!

Something I really adored about this book is the foil between a scary coming out versus a joyful coming out. I've always thought about coming out to anybody as a scary thing. I've almost held onto that as either an excuse not to do it or to give myself some sort of badge of honor for doing it. But there's this line in the book that I really loved about how coming out is joyful and how the whole point is that it's a celebration. I remember sitting with that and being like, “oh my god. It's not always a scary thing.” She does have a coming out moment that's a bit disappointing between her and her mom, but then you just have this most joyful celebration. It made me realize it doesn't have to be scary.

I was at a wedding the other weekend and the officiant said we should always be reaching out towards joy. That is something that I really felt with your book. You're on this constant reaching out towards joy.

Camryn

That makes me so happy.

Bex

There doesn't have to be fear. There can be trust and joy. I'm looking at my notes and I'm realizing there actually isn't a question about this whatsoever. I'm just thinking about it a lot.

Camryn

Yeah! I wrote the first draft of this when I was in high school and I returned to it because I was like, “I need a happy book.” I wrote it because I was seeing a lot of publishing professionals saying “we don't need any more coming out stories. We've seen that a lot,” and I was like “well, coming out is something you have to keep doing, or are confronted with over and over again.” I wish this sort of coming of age moment was treated the same way as a coming of age celebration the way that a sweet 16 is, or a Bar Mitzvah, or a quinceañera. Coming out should be a joyful moment in a young person's life that celebrates them getting older. I wanted to write from that point of view.

Coming out is complicated and messy. It depends on your situation, you, and your relationships with people. I wanted to show that it could be this really fun, awesome thing. When I was coming out to people it was always so cool to tell my friends and tell other queer people I know. I felt more bonded to them and I wanted to show that.

Bex

She does get her Irish girlfriend at the end, it is a rom com. We want them together. It's so lovely, but the coming out party does not hinge on that. She's not coming out because she has a girlfriend, she’s coming out because she's gay.

Camryn

I think that's the thing. I was at an event and someone in the audience was like, “why does coming out matter to you guys?” It was an older southern woman, and she was polite, but she was like, “I don't get why it matters so much.”

Bex

People are always polite when they insult you.

Camryn

It was funny because these two lesbians in the audience turned around and were like, “we're gonna tell you about our coming out” which was beautiful. Then she asked “why does it matter so much? It doesn't matter to me if you're gay.” And I was like, “okay, well, slay, Diane. I'm glad that you think that. But it's not really about you. It's about me.”

For Mahalia, in the book, she's pretty close to her mom. I think when you're close to someone and you love someone, you want to be able to share this thing that makes you feel happy. When I came out to my mom for the first time that's why I wanted to tell her. I wanted to be able to talk to her about girls the same way we talk about hot celebrity guys. That's not really the case, but that's what I wanted. I think that's what a lot of people want: to feel that connection.

Bex

We want you to care.

Camryn

Exactly. It's about wanting to be able to tell people who are close to you. To be able to be your full self. That's so cliche, but to be able to make dumb gay jokes and to talk about girls or whatever.

In the book, there's a part where Mahalia is driving with her mom and her mom's like, keep the wheel straight. And she's like, “I can't! I can't stay straight.” And her mom's like, “what are you talking about?” I've had so many moments like that with my mom. My mom's not being mean, and neither is Mahalia’s mom. They don’t understand. I think it's nice when you can make like dumb gay jokes with people.

Bex

It's like “this is not my personality, but it's a part of it.”

Camryn

It’s a part of it! I think that's the thing, too, where some people might ask “why is being gay your whole personality?” or “why do you think everyone's gay?” or whatever. Like, that's a big part of who I am.

Bex

It influences so many of my decisions

Camryn

I remember one of the lesbians at this panel where we were asked why coming out is so important. She was like, “when I came out at 47, it changed everything about my life. I didn't expect that.” She was like, “before I came out, I didn't expect being queer to impact everything, but it changed everything.” And we had all these slogans, like, you know, “just because I’m gay it doesn't mean I'm not still the same person” or “being gay doesn't change me that much”, or “I'm just like you”. But that's the thing, right? A lot of these things that we said to get rights. I don't know that they apply to me. I do feel like being gay or queer or whatever is important to me and the way I move through the world.

Bex

I can imagine that coming out at 47. It's the idea that it’s not my personality but a huge informant because my community is queer.

Camryn

Exactly.

Bex

It's not me being the one gay person in a room. It's me being one of many.

Camryn

Exactly. I was outlining a new book and I was trying to give a character a brother and I was texting my friend who's also gay and I was like, “what's your straight brother like? I don't know how straight men act.” He was like, “I don't know either actually. Like, I'm not sure.” I was like, “I don't know how to do this.” But it's because I think all my friends are queer and if they're not queer, they're very queer adjacent. I think that's important to me because I feel like it says a lot about the people that I hang out with.

I don't think I would be comfortable in an all straight friend group. It's not to say that straight people aren’t nice, straight people are nice! I think that it's just like not wanting to be the only Black friend in a friend group, or the only woman in a friend group. You want to be with people you feel comfortable with and a lot of times those are people who can understand your experience.

Bex

Yeah. I don't even know what question this came from.

I think this just came from me really loving the coming out story of this and just being in a community. I've been thinking a lot about how we read books in a solitary moment, in a solitary state, and yet it puts us in community with the people who've also read that book. More than just a book club. I've been thinking about the isolation of physically reading, unless you were fortunate enough to have your parents read to you as a kid or teachers reading to you in school. That physical act of reading is a state of being alone, and yet it is aligned with so many other people at the same time.

Camryn

I think that's one of the reasons why this book means a lot to me. I dedicated the book to a fanfic writer, or someone who wrote Britney/Santana Glee fanfiction that I used to read in high school. It meant so much to me. So I feel for the kids who are reading this book (or maybe the book is banned where they are) and maybe they don’t know any other queer people but still feel like they’re in community with them. That's why I love books like this.

Bex

On the book note, one of my last questions: part of the plot of this book is that they are reading Huck Finn and other books they are reading in school. I'm wondering, if you could create a syllabus for your own high school experience, what are just some of the books you would have loved to have read instead of Huck Finn?

Camryn

So I'm going to chicken out a little bit and say that I do think that my English teachers were all really good and facilitated a lot of conversation. I liked a lot of the books they picked. I read Black Boy by Richard Wright, and I loved that book and I loved that we were assigned it. I read The Bluest Eye. I feel like we read a lot of good books.

That being said, I would have loved to read more queer literature by queer authors. I would have loved to have read more James Baldwin. Audre Lorde would have been really great. I would have loved to read Zami. I read that on my own and I feel like it’s such a powerful book. I miss high school Socratic circles sometimes because I find some books really hard to read on my own. I wish we had read more Toni Morrison because I feel like I cannot read Toni Morrison by myself. I need a teacher or other people to sort of bounce off of. Definitely Audre Lorde because I feel like her writing is so nourishing and I feel like that would have been really slay.

We were talking the other day about how some teachers will pair a classic with a more recently released YA book and I would have loved that because I was reading YA anyway. I would love it if a current literary book was paired with a classic. We read The Kite Runner which I guess is pretty modern. But I would have loved to read a Jesmyn Ward. That would have been really, really cool to read in tandem with The Bluest Eye to compare and contrast.

Or I would have loved Jacqueline Woodson. Even Colson Whitehead. Any of these books would have been really really cool.

I love love love Jasmine Ward and I feel like that would have been so cool for me. Especially because I read her books before my dad died. I could handle them then and now I don't think I can handle them as much. I can't read her newest book, I think it'll mess me up, but to read it in a classroom setting would be really nice. It would be like sharing that grief and that heaviness with other people, if that makes sense.

Bex

Absolutely. It does make sense. It's a very different space. That truly is the community.

Camryn

In Friday I’m in Love they're reading To Kill a Mockingbird and there's a part where Mahalia and her best friend are sort of dragging it. I actually liked To Kill a Mockingbird but I had issues with the way Black people were portrayed. One of the most frustrating things for me was coming into class, having read the book, processing all these thoughts, and sitting in the Socratic Circle with no one else talking. It was just me like, “ugh I hate the way this happened and I hate the way that happened,” and no one else was engaging like that. It was really annoying to me.

Also you and I both like The Catcher in the Rye.

Bex

We do!

Camryn

I really liked The Catcher in the Rye. I probably won't read it again for a while. I think my teacher was like, “read this again in 10 years when you're married and have a child.” I was like, “At 26? 26? What? A child bride? That's a great idea, but I will not be married with a child at 26.”

Bex

There are so many books to read and reread. I'm not looking to reread Catcher in the Rye when I'm married with a child at any age.

Camryn

So here's the thing, I get the point he's making. He's like, “you will see Holden from a different point of view.”

Bex

Of course.

Camryn

His reasoning was “you guys are his age now and you might be like, ‘ugh, fuck him, he's annoying.’” Sorry. Everyone hates him. I get he's annoying, but-

Bex

So am I!

Camryn

First of all, yes. But also, like, there's a sexual assault implied.

Bex

There sure is.

Camryn

So I feel like everyone who hates him didn't read the book because it's so implied. Also, he's in a mental hospital. Like, this kid is not well. He's white, yes. He's annoying, yes. But he's not well. I'm worried about him! Sometimes I think about how Ben Affleck wanted to make a Catcher in the Rye movie and the estate was like, “no.”

Bex

The estate has said no to everybody but I love the idea of them saying “no” most ardently to Ben Affleck.

Camryn

I didn't mean to imply that, but I was, like, 16 or whatever and I was like, “I want to make this into a movie.” And I'm imagining my Black gay ass going to the estate and being like, “I want to make Holden a Black gay lesbian.” And I wouldn't even be able to finish my sentence. It would be like “denied.”

Bex

Holden is trans!

Camryn

Holden is trans.

Bex and Camryn

Holden is trans!

Camryn

That would make sense! I do really miss reading books in a classroom setting. That was one of my favorite parts of college, of high school. I would take classes again just to read with a group of people. We should do that at Books Are Magic.

Bex

We do do that! We do that with each other, we just don't read the same books.

Camryn

We don't be readin’ the same books at all.

Bex

My sister and I lived in a mid-sized city for a while and we met some people who said their favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird and it's like, “have you actually read any other book since then?” And the answer was mainly no.

Camryn

Well here's the thing, I don't trust people who name their kids after the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel kind of bad because there was a very cool teacher in my high school who named his kid Atticus so… everyone except them.

Bex

People contain multitudes, apparently.

Camryn

I find it a red flag. My ears prick up because I'm like, “have you read anything else?” And also like, “have you read anything by a Black person?”

Bex

Yes.

Camryn

Why are the white people not out here naming their kids Langston or something? They're naming their kids Atticus and then they feel bad about it because of the sequel. Well, they should feel bad about it in general. But yeah, I always find that to be a red flag.

I mean, Gregory Peck's hot in the movie.

Bex

Sure, but Gregory Peck is hot separate from the film.

Camryn

Oh for sure.

Bex

I would rather name the kid Gregory. Then you could hide.

Camryn

Well, I just feel like the main thing is, like, he's a white savior. Even though he's very noble and he's a great single dad and he's hot (allegedly). And Scout's great. I really liked Scout. And I was like, “oh, she's a lesbian. She's going to be in a Boston marriage.”

Bex

Absolutely.

Camryn

The brother was annoying. But I thought it was a really interesting coming of age story, it's just like a shame that the Black characters have to be one dimensional for that to happen.

Bex

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for doing this!

Do you have anything you want to plug of your own or of anyone else's?

Camryn

Oooh, no one ever asks about anyone else's. My friend Joelle Wellington wrote this book called Their Vicious Games. My hot take is that it should have been on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Not to rant, but the New York Times Bestseller List for YA has been all white pretty consistently recently. That's bad.

My middle grade book comes out in 2025! It's too early for anyone to preorder, but keep your eyes out for that. It is about a girl who finds a magical portal to Seneca Village in Central Park, and it's out from Abrams. My editor just emailed me about a second round of edits, so… That's happening.

Bex

Congrats!

Camryn

Thank you!

Bex

Oh, I cannot wait to read that and rate it on Indie Next. And you know where you can eventually preorder that book…

Bex and Camryn

At Books Are Magic!

Sources Mentioned:

Friday I'm in Love by Camryn Garrett

Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote